A visit from Mary September 20, 2014

A few weekends ago my sister Mary took a spur-of-the-moment trip from her home in Cleveland to visit me.  At 8am that Saturday, I retrieved her from her ridiculously early flight at SFO arrivals, scooped up Pogo the cat from my house in San Francisco, and to the pulse of periodic meowing we hightailed it up to Almost Pi.   The weather here was as lovely as I have ever seen it, and we planned to head out for a big hike but soon found our plans derailed by the many other enticements of Point Reyes.

First, we fortified ourselves with goodies and music at the Farmer’s Market surrounding Toby’s Feed Barn.  Then we thought, why not quickly stop by the opening of the BayWood Artists’ show at the Red Barn?  There, we ran into a friend of mine from Marin Oratorio, who pointed out the blue posts that marked the San Andreas Fault, which essentially passes right through the Red Barn itself.  It turns out Mary had never taken the Earthquake Trail, so that prompted another diversion; how I love to point out that displaced fence! 

We then noticed the sign for the Woodpecker Trail, which I had never been on, so that led us to yet another fascinating little hike.  Equipped with a Western Birds app on my iPhone, we checked out the calls for the various woodpeckers, and sure enough, we heard them calling back to us!  The path deposited us uphill at the Morgan Horse Ranch, so of course we had to poke around there, another first for me, I’m ashamed to say.  I knew nothing about this quintessential American horse, not to mention the importance of this Ranch in breeding and training Morgans for this and other national parks.  By this time we were ready to give up on the big hike, and opted instead for a look at the Bear Valley Visitor Center, where there was a small exhibit on the Marconi telegraph stations and where Mary treated herself, and me, to a few lovely souvenirs.  We packed in a very late lunch of burgers, root fries, and beer at Marin Sun Farms before returning to Pi to bundle up Pogo once again and watch the sun set over the horse pasture together.  We came inside to enjoy some Strauss vanilla ice cream (Pogo, too), pulled out our books, and Mary quickly conked out.

Every visitor is an opportunity to see something new or see it with fresh eyes.  Keep coming!